Hello World, I'm Alan Neal Levy.
I have strong ties to Hartford Conn. especially the North End. Mom (Sylvia Geetter Levy) grew up the youngest of seven kids in a cold flat on Elmer St., and my Dad (Lenny Levy) grew up in a two-family house on Colebrook St. They both graduated from Weaver High School – in the beautiful building that now houses MLK Middle School. Ironically, my first full-time teaching assignment was at the "new" Weaver on Granby St., which was torn down recently and rebuiult. Most of my childhood, I lived in the Bloomfield neighborhood of Pershing Park, where Keeney Park literally was my back yard. When I was 11, I went to the Boys & Girls Club that opened in Bowles Park. More often, I rode my bicycle to the Modern Drug Store on Blue Hills Ave. or the Hartford Public Library branch on Albany Avenue.
As a young adult, I lived in Hartford – first on Sigourney St. and then on Capitol Ave. After teaching at Weaver, I was hired as the Director of the non-profit Youth Theatre Unlimited. I was the last person to walk through the Old Place Theatre, where YTU was operating, before it was demolished to make way for State House Square. Real Art Ways was also displaced from its downtown home at that time. After this, I founded Hartford Children's Theatre, which recently ceased operations after 20 glorious years. I lived in the South End (Zion St.) for the first five years running HCT - directly across from the Rocks of Trinity, where I remember learning to dance Salsa at the numerous concerts and parties in the park. Then I moved to Mansfield, where I still reside. After leaving Hartford Children's Theatre, I taught at Coventry High School for ten years. Then I taught at the International School of Port of Spain in the island nation of Trinidad and Tobago, where I became addicted to doubles, a popular street food. I also taught at Española Valley High School in Española, New Mexico before returning to CT. Back home, I was hired to teach at one of Hartford's magnet high schools - Pathways Academy of Technology & Design. I served two years as a Curriculum Specialist for Hartford Public Schools before completing my final teaching assignment in Beijing China.